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I was born and grew up less than a mile from this artefact, I'm now 39 and I must have been about 14 when I when I first ventured down there with a school friend who'd been shown around by his elder brother. I've long since moved out of the area. I've not visited the site for a good while. I am told that it is currently secured and has been so for a number of years. The bunker was known locally to the people of the Wentworth Estate, people of Virginia Water, and also amongst the people who worked on the golf course as 'Monty's Hole'. This bolt hole was thankfully never used but would have been had Hitler gained an atomic arms supremacy.
This is a layout based on a plan originally plotted by the Chelsea Speleological Society and I'd like to thank Roger Morgan who went to some considerable trouble, inconvenience, and expense (not to mention slight danger) to explore, measure and produce the plan on which these maps are based.
Here's a recent photo overlay from the air and showing clearly the huge slab of concrete which straddles Wentworth Drive.
Download .kmz for Google Earth This .kmz for Google Earth shows the two access points and a more ordinary air raid shelter. I have aligned my placemarks to the graphic overlay and there does seem to be a considerable discrepancy between this and the road vector overlays. If the road co-ordinates are to be taken as true, everything would in fact be approx 35m NE of the references given.
There a secondary access point in the
form of a concrete stairway which opens out almost directly onto Wentworth Drive
and is very visible from the road. The front of the entrance was bricked up in
the late 70's and
the rear has since, I am told, been secured. There was vivid evidence of a gallery of
electrical services which ran at head height along the side of the tunnels.
The rooms would have had floorboards laid across brick piers but these were long gone, even back in the 70s. Most rooms were partially flooded and intrepid visitors had to hop from pier to pier as if on stepping stones. I'm not sure if the rooms were vaulted but certainly tall in comparison to the tunnel. Each room was approx 8m x 5m
The rooms in retrospect are in fact tubular. The 'bucket' vents may have extended horizontally in contradiction to that which is pictured. At the far end, another shallow ramp followed by a flight of steps. You'd ascend to the Northern access which was bricked off with engineering bricks although these were laid in such a way, with ventilation gaps, so that you could see the cars parked in the car park at the back of the 19th hole kitchen. I remember posting some debris in the apertures, and having climbed out, I tied this up with the vent shaft in the car park backing on to Wentworth House. Following this, I spoke with an accomplice on the ground level though the gaps in the bricks at the top of the stairway. This access point seemed to pierce ground level at some point near, but not within Wentworth House. Perhaps there is an annexe or temporary building since demolished which linked the two. Part of the car park seemed to be made of a huge slab of concrete which is I am told is a bomb deflection slab, or more correctly a burster slab. I didn't envisage at the time that it would have covered the entire core of the complex, it actually straddles the road. Because of the various angular twists and turns that we took down there when we visited it we became unsure of how it was laid out . Given our impression at the time, most of the complex appeared to be to the South of Wentworth Drive but thanks to Roger Morgan and the CSS we are now better informed. Here's my older brother Geoff holding his Ever Ready bicycle front light and me on the right with a hurricane paraffin lamp.
Here's my brother Geoff and sister Teresa in a similar era but evidently on a different occasion as my brother is wearing a different shirt.
Now the interesting thing about these two photos is that they were taken by Wolfgang Holsken who was my brother's German penpal. We took him and his brother Kristoff down there for a couple of visits which I recalled they were thoroughly thrilled by.
Printed Reference
London's Secret Tubes
- by
Andrew Emmerson
'Beneath The City Streets' - Peter Laurie This book records this facility as a backup D Day control centre for Fort Southwick and Newhaven. This book is long out of print, rare and much sought after, although much of its speculative opinion has since found other explanations.
Vol 16 Caves and Tunnels in South-East England Part 8 -
Chelsea Speleological Society
Cost (at time of writing) is £4.00 inc. P&P
Contact:
John Cooper
CSS Records Officer
31 Elm Close
Wells
Somerset
BA5 1LZ
Other Bunkers
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